Rising from the ashes of the beloved (if erratic) print digest (that itself rose from the ashes of The Scream Factory magazine), we'd like to welcome you to the bare•bones e-zine. We look forward to offering the same irreverent reviews and commentary you've come to expect from us.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 20: January 1961

The DC War Comics 1959-1976By Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook

Joe Kubert and Jack Adler

G. I. Combat 85

"The T.N.T. Trio!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"A Fort Called Lucky!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: My least favorite threesome, Little Al, Big Al, and Charlie Cigar, now dubbed "The TNT Trio," are sent by their CO to find the enemy's secret weapon. After fumbling and bumbling their way through several misadventures, they stumble upon the payload: an underground bunker housing missiles aimed at the Allied troops. With a little luck and a whole lot of pineapples, The TNT Trio save life and limb and remain unbeaten. If any series could make a reader pine for Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch, it's The TNT Stooges, an utterly inane and unoriginal concept replayed over and over. "Isn't that right, Little Al?" "Oh, I don't know. What do you think, Charlie Cigar?" I'm convinced that this series was Kanigher's DC war answer to Jerry Lewis films (all the rage at the time), what with the crazy antics and slant-eyed buck-toothed stereotypes screaming "BANZAI!" Extra credit for inanity this time out for the scene where Charlie and Big Al shove Little Al in a lead pipe and roll him down a hill towards a tank. Or maybe my favorite scene was where Big Al was athletic enough to leap from one side of a river to the other without touching water. If I write to the address provided by DC, asking if we want more TNT Trio, will they listen? Huh? Will they, Jack?

"The T.N.T. Trio!"

Jack: I think it's too late, Peter. First of all, what's with the cover? Do you see any sign of Joe Kubert there? If I squint and use my imagination, maybe, but I think it's more Adler than Kubert. As for the latest episode of the TNT Trio--blecch! The writing is terrible and so is the art. The hand to hand combat scene is ludicrous, as the Japanese soldier slices Charlie's cigar and then Charlie socks him with an uppercut to the chin. My only hope is that Kanigher was trying to imprint his characters' names on our minds by repeating them over and over and over. At least we won't have any more stories drawn by Andru and Esposito this month--or will we?

Peter: A squadron is saddled with "A Fort Called Lucky," an old bomber they'd rather have been sent to mothballs. After being strafed by enemy fire, the men must abandon ship and hoof it in the desert. Just as an enemy tank nears, the men see the flying fortress (still airborne) heading towards them. In an incredible (some would say impossible) stroke of luck, the ship not only lands safely in the desert but right where the men need her most. With the arms and bombs aboard, they're able to take out the Nazis and drink a toast to "Lucky Lady." A wildly implausible tale, I would think. I've not only never been in a war, I've never flown a plane but could someone in the know tell me how this damaged plane would fly around in circles and then make a perfect landing in the sand without going BLANG! WHAM! BAM!? Irv Novick's no Russ Heath but at least he's no Andru/Esposito either so the art is passable.

"A Fort Called Lucky!"

Jack: Beyond the implausible plot developments that you have pointed out, this becomes another fish out of water story, as the men fire at a tank from inside the downed plane. This seems to have been plot device G-17 for DC war comic story writers--soldiers fight with the wrong equipment. How can a plane on the ground fight off a tank? Find out in this month's G.I. Combat! I agree with you about Irv Novick--he rarely knocks my socks off but his art is always decent and he doesn't have the annoying style of an Andru or a Grandenetti, especially later in Jerry G's career.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 102

"The Big Star!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Green Apple Ace!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

"Frogman Fury!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Jack: Freddy Miller of Easy Co. puzzles Rock due to his penchant for staring at the sky, at leaves, at butterflies, and so on. Rock wonders if he'll have what it takes when the chips are down. He finds out when Freddy is the last man left to defend a narrow pass against oncoming Nazi forces. Miller holds them off single-handedly and wins the Congressional Medal of Honor--aka "The Big Star!"-- for his bravery. Rock later finds himself in a similar situation when he is pinned down by a heavy wooden beam after lighting the fuse on a bundle of dynamite about to blow up a bridge. Lucky for him, a blast from a Nazi tank blows him to safety and the bridge goes up in flames above him.This is a great story about courage and the way that one can't tell how one will react in a crisis until it happens. Why can't the TNT Trio be more like this?

"The Big Star!"

Peter: Despite the fact that Rock comes off as The Indestructible Man sometimes (here blown sky high but coming down undamaged), this is a stirring, exciting drama. Almost like getting two excellent stories for the price of one, since the saga of Freddy Miller is a classic within a nail-biter. We're never told what really happened to Freddy but since it's left to our imagination, it's all the more grim. My only question would be: did Rock panic and almost put out the fuse?

Jack: Lt. Frank Wells is the first member of his flying squadron to arrive at an air base in WWI. Just then, a squadron of 20 enemy planes, led by the German Ace Von Halder, flies overhead and Von Halder drops a glove, challenging the Americans to an air battle. Wells does not want the Germans to know his mates have not yet arrived, so the "Green Apple Ace!" hops in his biplane and takes to the sky, challenging and defeating one plane at a time until the rest of his squadron swoops in to save the day just in the nick of time. Jack Adler continues his rebirth in this exciting story, which features plenty of cool WWI flying battle action!

"Green Apple Ace!"

Peter: As a Monday Morning Quarterback, all these German Enemy Aces can become quite confusing. For the record, the famous Enemy Ace, who won't debut for another four years, was Hans von Hammer, not this story's Von Halder. I really liked this one, but what the heck does it mean when our hero says "Von Halder's massed squadron could blast me from the air like a fly in a lead tornado!"?

"Frogman Fury!"

Jack: A frogman who can't find the sub he's supposed to blow up surfaces to see his own sub being strafed by a Japanese zero. He hops on the sub's deck and shoots down the plane in an exhibition of "Frogman Fury!", but when he's knocked back into the water by the crash of the plane his own sub starts to go below without him! He destroys an enemy boat that is dropping bombs on his sub, then he deflects a couple of torpedoes shot from the enemy sub he had been looking for in the first place. One of the torpedoes destroys the enemy sub and he uses a leftover piece from the wreckage to fix his own sub! This is one far-fetched story. The craziest moment is when the frogman lassos a speeding torpedo and swings it around to aim it back at the sub that launched it!

Peter: I got the same feeling with this one that I got with "A Fort Called Lucky!" It's an exiting but highly outlandish yarn with better art than we should expect from Andru and Esposito.

Joe Kubert

Star Spangled War Stories 94

"The Frogman and the Dinosaur!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"Ghost Ace!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: A group of frogmen are stranded when their ship is attacked by giant monsters from the dinosaur age. They dispatch the critters with the help of some floating mines and surface just in time to take part in "the attack." Are these dino-stories set around the same island (this time identified as Lava Island) or has the entire Pacific been invaded by dinosaurs? I'm assuming that pretty soon some rules will be adopted and adhered to since, by this point, the entire US military should know something weird's going on out there.

"The Frogman and the Dinosaur!"

Jack: How did these true war stories remain hidden from the public for so long? You'd think that with all these dinos, some of the surviving soldiers would've mentioned it to somebody! This month is just too much Ross Andru for me. Two long stories and a short one. What happened to Heath? Did he get eaten by a T-Rex? Did you notice that the boat in this story was PT-109? That was JFK's boat in WWII. Does this mean that President Kennedy secretly fought dinos in the big one?

Peter: After shooting down the infamous German Von Richter from the skies, an American World War I pilot is haunted by the ace's ghost plane. A really exciting, stirring tale right up to the part where we get the Scooby Doo explanation (Von Richter staged his own death so that he could come back and erode our hero's sanity until he was vulnerable enough to shoot down!). Bob Haney may have been shy about introducing the supernatural into his war stories, unlike Bob Kanigher, so we get a hokey and improbable expository. Like Kanigher though, Haney loves those Enemy Aces.

"Ghost Ace!"

Jack: Two in one month! We just had Von Halder in Our Army at War, and now we have Von Richter in Star Spangled! This is the second story drawn by Jack Abel this month that looks really cool. Of course, I love WWI stories with biplanes, so that helps. The ghost plane and ghost ace reminded me of that great Batman story by Neal Adams with Enemy Ace (Detective 404, Oct. 1970), which we reviewed awhile back.

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About the editors/authors

Peter Enfantino is an obsessive collector of Mystery, Crime and Horror digests including Alfred Hitchcock, Manhunt, Mike Shayne, as well as the entire stable of Warren Magazines. He has written for all the major channels on the topics, including Paperback Parade, Mystery Scene, The Digest Enthusiast, Paperback Fanatic, Men of Violence, Mystery File, Comic Effect, and Peter Normanton's From the Tomb. He Lives in Gilbert, AZ.

John Scoleri is the author of several books on artist Ralph McQuarrie, the producer of a feature length interview DVD with actress Caroline Munro, and is the self-appointed curator of the I Am Legend Archive. Much of his free time is spent scheduling programming in his home theater, The Slaughtered Lamb Cinema.

For more than ten years, John and Peter were co-editors of The Scream Factory: The Magazine of Horrors Past, Present and Future and bare•bones. They took the world by storm with their blogs, A Thriller A Day,We Are Controlling Transmission, To the Batpoles! and It Couldn't Happen Here. They're now expending their energies on the bare•bones e-zine.

Jack Seabrook is the author of two books on popular fiction: Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life and Work of Fredric Brown (1993) and Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney (2003). He has had articles published in crime fiction magazines such as The Armchair Detective and he is a lifelong reader of comic books! Among other things he intends to educate the world to the joys of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and (with Peter) DC War and Horror comics.

Jose Cruz has written for a variety of sites and publications including Rue Morgue, Turn to Ash, Video Librarian, Classic-Horror.com, The Terror Trap, and Paracinema Magazine. His other ramblings can be found at The Haunted Omnibus. He lives in Southwest Florida with his wife and a very furry child.